C7/2005L Falling of passenger stairs at Rovaniemi airport on 14 December 2005

On Wednesday 14 December 2005 at 10.17 UTC, an Airbus A321 airliner registered G-OOAH landed at Rovaniemi airport, Finland. The aircraft was operated by First Choice Airways on a charter flight from Bristol, Great Britain, with the call sign FCA536C. The aircraft was taxied to stand number nine guided by Rovaniemi airport staff. At 10.32.40, about eight minutes after the aircraft was stopped, it began to move backwards. The open aircraft door caused the passenger stairs to fall, and four persons were slightly injured.

On 15 December 2005, the Finnish Accident Investigation Board decided to set up an investigation commission to investigate the incident (decision No. C 7/2005 L). Aircraft Accident investiga-tor Jussi Haila was appointed as investigator-in-charge and Aircraft Accident Investigator Kari Siitonen as a member of the commission. The British accident investigation authority was also informed of the investigation.

After the aircraft was stopped, the ground handling staff had placed wheel chocks in front of and behind the left wheel of the nose landing gear and the left main landing gear, and pushed the passenger stairs to the front passenger door L1. The passengers started to disembark using the stairs. The co-pilot came out of the aircraft and showed a sign to the captain on the flight deck as agreed, after he had checked that the wheel chocks were in place. The captain had risen from his seat and released the parking brake. On the right side of the aircraft there was a refuelling truck, the driver of which had attached the refuelling hose to the coupling on the right wing. The co-pilot entered the necessary figures on the aircraft refuelling panel and gave the truck driver a permission to start refuelling. A forklift truck stood in front of the forward cargo door, and a baggage conveyor belt had been placed at the aft cargo door. The ground staff had started to unload the baggage. A water truck had been driven at the left side of the aircraft, under the aft fuselage. Its driver had attached the water hose into the coupling on the aircraft.

At 10.32.40, the ground staff noticed that the aircraft was moving backwards. The driver of the refuelling truck noticed that the refuelling hose was tightening and released the safety switch in his hand, which stopped the fuel flow. However, the hose was torn off from the wing, breaking the attachment. The loading supervisor and the co-pilot tried to show to the captain on the flight deck that he should engage the parking brake, but the captain was not on his seat. He was standing in the rear of the flight deck with his face towards the cabin. After hearing some noise from the passenger door he turned towards the flight deck and engaged the parking brake. At the same time, air traffic control announced by radio that the aircraft was moving. The driver of the refuelling truck and one loader had gone to the left side, crossing below the aircraft while it was moving, and tried to push wheel chocks behind the left main landing gear wheels, but the chocks slid on the icy surface and did not stop the aircraft from moving. It only came to a stop when the captain engaged the parking brake. As the aircraft was moving backwards, the door opening moved behind the passenger stairs and the handrail of the stairs got stuck to the passenger door, which caused the stairs to fall down. The other handrail slammed the passenger door and damaged it. There were 7-10 persons on the stairs when they began to fall down. The others managed to get away from the stairs, but a family with two children under 10 years of age, which were at the upper end of the stairs, fell down with them and sustained minor injuries.

The aircraft started to move because the surface at the stand was sloping. The angle of slope exceeded the maximum allowed in the standards for construction of aircraft stands. The wheel chocks could not keep the aircraft in place, but slid in front of the turning wheels due to the slippery surface and the structure and material of the chocks. The captain used the parking brake in accordance with the cockpit procedure intended for freezing conditions. However, the aircraft manufacturer has also published a standard procedure which allows the parking brake to be engaged on a slippery stand. After the incident and during the investigation, the airline has already changed the instructions given to its pilots.

Some deficiencies were found in the supervision of ground handling operations. Rovaniemi airport had not concluded the agreements required by aviation regulations with the ground handling agents working at the airport, and did not monitor their operations. The Finnish aviation authority had not inspected the ground handling operations either. The airline had recently started operating to Rovaniemi. It had not controlled the operations of the ground handling agent it was using in Rovaniemi, nor had it provided the agent with all manuals listed in the agreement between the airline and the ground handling company.

C7/2005L Report (pdf, 0.63 Mt)